FURY OVER CHARITIES THAT FUND JIHADI JOHN APOLOGISTS
CHARITIES were last night urged to stop funding a ‘ warped’ human rights group that supports islamic State killer Jihadi John. Politicians said Cage had acted reprehensibly in describing knifewielding fanatic Mohammed Emwazi as a ‘ beautiful young man’. The group, led by former Guantanamo Bay inmate Moazzam Begg, has been propped up largely by grants of £305,000 from the Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust.
Another charity, set up in memory of Body Shop tycoon Anita Roddick, has handed over £120,000 to Cage. Much of the rest of the group’s income comes from cash donations from Muslims. Lord Carlile, a former independent reviewer of anti-terror legislation, said he had serious concerns about Cage and would never advise giving it money.
‘Cage is an organisation with a warped view,’ he declared. ‘No sensible person should be funding it.’
As questions were being asked as to how Emwazi was allowed to reach Syria, it also emerged that:
The Charity Commission, which started investigating both the Rowntree and Roddick charities over their funding of Cage in 2013, said there were clear questions over their leadership;
An Amnesty chief was once suspended for criticising its close links with Cage;
A video of Cage spokesman Asim Qureshi shows him calling on Muslims to support jihad at an extremist rally;
Sir John Sawers, the former head of MI6,
THE FORMER head of MI6 today warns there are ‘several thousand’ individuals of concern in Britain as he demands tougher anti-terror powers to prevent a ‘ghastly 7/7style attack’.
Sir John Sawers also speaks out against the criticism of security services over their handling of Mohammed Emwazi – unmasked as Jihadi John – who is known to have been on their radar for at least six years.
He will tell Radio 4’s Today: ‘The threat that we face from terrorists here has gone up over the last three years and there has to be some response to that.
‘What we don’t want to do is wait for some ghastly 7/7 style terrorist attack here in the UK before political opinion changes.
‘The whole point is to move incrementally to ensure that the powers and resources available to the security services, intelligence services, are ahead of that threat.’
Sir John, who stepped down from MI6 last November, added: ‘I think in general when you look at the challenge that the security services are facing with the number of extremists here in the UK, elsewhere in Europe, they do a really professional job and, of course, they know many of these individuals, most of them who end up taking part in terrorist organisations.
‘They’d be more subject to criticism if someone came and committed an atrocity in this country or elsewhere who they had no knowledge of whatsoever.
‘They’re doing their professional job by being aware of these people. But there are probably several thousand of these individuals of concern and the numbers are rising as more people go to Syria and Iraq and are radicalised out there.
‘And no one is talking about rounding up all these people or keeping 100 per cent coverage, there’s just not the resources to do that and it would be contrary to our principles of human rights to do that… so you do have to find a balance in there.’
Sir John also dismissed claims the treatment of Emwazi by MI5 may have helped radicalise him as ‘very specious arguments’.
However, the counter-terrorism laws watchdog David Anderson QC said the intelligence agencies may have made a ‘slip up’ in failing to impose tighter controls on Emwazi due to the sheer number of suspects they have to cope with.
Mr Anderson said he was not surprised that Emwazi was not subject to measures such as house arrest, despite being on MI5’ s radar, because the UK’s spies and counter- terrorism police were very busy’. His warning came as Boris Johnson attacked ministers yesterday for scrapping control orders on terror suspects that could have prevented the murderer from slipping out of Britain to join Islamic State.
In what was seen as stinging criticism of Home Secretary Theresa May’s decision to replace the orders – under which suspects are tagged and confined to specific areas – with less-restrictive measures, the London mayor said: ‘What this shows is we need to keep a very, very close eye on these people.
‘The decision to modify the control orders, to water them down, I think looks as though it was a mistake because it is vital to be able, when you are controlling these people to be able to relocate them, to take them away from their support networks and… to monitor them.’
Mr Johnson spoke out after it was revealed that Emwazi, 26, had been on the radar of the security services for five years as part of a support network for West London-based terror suspects and extremists, some on control orders.
But these were replaced in 2011 by the Home Office – under intense pressure from the Lib Dems – with less-restrictive Terrorism Prevention and Investigation Measures ( TPIMS) making i t harder to monitor movements of terror suspects.
‘The balance, the benefit of the doubt was, I am afraid, given too much to those who wish us serious harm,’ Mr Johnson said.
Lord Carlile, the Government’s former independent reviewer of anti- terrorism legislation, said Emwazi would have been placed under a control order.
Shadow Home Secretary Yvette Cooper said: ‘We warned the Government not to abolish control orders. TPIMs are too weak.’
‘It looks like a mistake’